Standing In
by wanderingjaded
Summary: She was in love with a mystery man and he just didn't get it. What he knew was she needed to move on and he would help.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: The characters and canon situations in the following story belong solely to JK Rowling, Scholastic and WB. I am not making any money from the publishing or writing of this story.

AN: I know, I should be working on something else but this idea has been thrown around my head thanks to the holidays. Luckily this is a short idea and two more chapters of this and it'll be done, maybe by tomorrow.

**Standing In**

**Chapter 1**

She stabbed at the cake again before removing a large forkful.

There were stages to how she felt and he knew it.

She was currently dwelling on a specific subject and the solution was there wasn't one. He never knew what the trigger really was but he knew what happened to get to the end result. The though would form, she would mull over it, then force it out of her mind. When it wouldn't leave her mind, she would find an outlet that could be seen as productive and both time and mind consuming. When that failed her, she would give in and wallow in sugar and attempt to desensitize herself with violence. Neither really did their job but the last step was where he would be required. While he was always readily willing to help, he hated knowing that it bothered her.

This time she had resorted to cake that had yet to completely defrost.

Stabbing for another large bite, she tried in vain to drown out her thoughts in the confection.

"Did you see him?" He knew better than to ask but he couldn't help asking.

She gave him a look that made him wonder if she had shed tears prior to his arrival. Looking back down at the cake, she turned back to the screen of her telly as the scene of two very brawny men tried to beat and tear each other apart.

He had come by mainly to ask if she was up to coming with him to shop for new dress robes but found the sight more pressing.

"Shut up." She was trying to desensitize herself while wallowing in her mood and he knew it would fail her soon. She really did make an effort to drag out each step that led to the last one.

The empty biscuit tin and now half family size cake would overwhelm her soon.

He didn't like knowing that she could easily be bothered by someone.

More specifically he didn't like knowing that he was playing second best to some guy. They were to some extent friends and given what he knew, he was grateful for that.

"He's worthless." Draco was prone to such statements when it came to others but in this case, he was sure he was more than apt. Hermione had once confided in him one lonely morning after Valentines why she was lonely. While he had came from a not lonely night with a lovely witch who kept him very detained, Hermione had stayed it after having drinks with Harry and Ron.

As Draco had plans that night, he wasn't there to see her go through her phases then. What he found in the morning made him ask why she didn't just grab some lucky guy and rock his night. To which she told him that while lonely, she wasn't desperate and she wanted more than that. He was graced with her complete emotional breakdown that morning over muffins she had stayed up baking in bulk.

Through her tears and choked attempts to not reveal the truth, she confessed that while a Gryffindor, she was a coward with her dream man.

Of which he wondered why she didn't grab said man and make the lucky bastard her Valentine. To which she sobbed silently telling him that she knew he had a date the night previous and regardless of such, the mystery man would never see her seriously in such a way.

So somewhere out there, Draco learned that some dense unlucky bastard had Hermione's unrequited love. She spoke of how wonderful and kind and perfect she thought of said man and how she knew how hopeless she was for the man.

No matter how she felt, Draco tried in vain that morning to talk herself out of her slump. He spoke of how great she was, what a lovely person she was and outright told her that the dumbass didn't deserve her and she was better off moving on.

Of that she promptly hit him. It was reminiscent of the punch she gave him back in school and his shoulder was bruised for days for it. She yelled at him then for being insensitive and not having the capacity to understand love in such a way much less unrequited love.

So he sat and listened to her rants and sobs, accepting that she had a point and he wouldn't argue.

He heard of how the bastard meant so much to her. He heard of how the bastard didn't notice her as anything but a friend at most. It seemed to the guy, she was somewhere between someone useful and someone to just keep around, a pal that while female was just one of the guys.

He tried to tell her that he didn't see how that was possible but then he was reminded of her relationship with Ron and Harry. She easily explained that the bastard was not among the two as her history of loving the worthless man was more recent.

He tried to tell her that there were ways to get a man's attention to which she replied that she had tried and disastrously failed. She had even mentioned having help from the man's mother of all things.

From there, he pointed out the mistake of having a mother's help when it wasn't your own. True or not, she spoke of how she had a small section of her closet full of items she bought to get a response out of the man only to be waved off.

She surmised that physically and otherwise, her love just simply didn't see her as such. She made predictions of how he would be obliviously happy with his life regardless of her presence. She told him of how the man would live out his life getting the dream of ever after with some lucky woman she wished she could have been and knew she wouldn't be. She even went as far as to hope the man would get there sooner rather than later. Her hope that if she could finally see him married off with some perfect family, she could close off the feelings for good. She could only believe that knowing he was happy and settled with someone else, that jealously would be replaced with acceptance and closure. She was tired of watching the man run off with some pretty thing while her heart dragged along wondering if the new woman in his life was the one for him.

If anything she knew she was stuck to work her way out of her feelings and she admitted she would.

It was the last bit that got Draco finally happy for her. He was proud that through her drivel, she saw the light and understood that unrequited love or not, the bastard didn't deserve her. Any man that dense didn't deserve her chasing after them.

Draco secured her promise to move on and let the one sided feelings go. He didn't like knowing that through her strengths, some idiot could make her into an emotional wreak.

"I wish he'd just finally get married." The words were laced with venom and Draco didn't dare deny that she was bitter now. Love or not, Hermione's feelings to the mystery man had made her resentful.

More often than not recently, she was overwhelmed with the fact that her mystery man was living life single enough and happily so that she became angered that he could be happy alone while she was unluckily single and a dozen more cats from being the cat lady.

"Well if he's a catch then he'll get there." If anything, Draco desperately wished the same as well. He hated watching Hermione wallow away for the guy. While her feelings didn't impact negatively on her external life, it was the fact that someone could affect her so.

She took another forkful of cake as the image of one of the fighters make a sicken turn to a punch.

She licked the fork clean before stabbing it into the cake and leaving it there. Leaning on him, she watched a few more punches land before a few undeserved tears left her.

"Is it still love if it's just me?" She had gotten more analytical over the years. The first few, she accepted that it was love and she was doomed. Recently, she started wondering if it was even love or her overactive mind messing with her.

"Only you would know." If anything he was more ready to tell her that it wasn't. He wanted to rationalize that he couldn't be but he didn't want to risk undermining her feelings and hurting her more.

She sat up then, looking up at him. He could see that there would be a great many more moments that would draw out this side of her before she was over her feelings. It angered him to know she could still be cut down so easily by one man.

He didn't wait for her to make the move this time.

Leaning towards her, he swiftly captured her lips with his. He tasted the chocolate and hints of rum she must have had before his arrival. Her emotional state made it easy for her to let him lead. She easily succumbed to his lips and didn't protest when he started the slow task of removing her pajamas.

If anything, she encouraged him. Twining her arms around his neck, she made sure he didn't cease his course of action. She needed this outlet and he was more than willing to help her stick her thumb at her feelings and the bastard of a guy who was missing out on her.

* * *

"You never did tell me what happened." He rolled over to her side of the bed to try and stare her down.

Propping himself up with one arm, he tried to analyze her analyzing the ceiling.

"It's silly." She had crossed the threshold to undermining her feelings all on her own. Important or not, it seemed lately, she was of the mind that her feelings didn't matter.

"And yet it happened." Draco could see the resentment coming back in her. The days of Hermione being mopey and sickeningly wishful and dejected in love were dying. Where he had once hoped that she would snap out of her love to be someone stronger and move onto some truly deserving who saw the greatness that she was, it was becoming clear that such a thing might not happen. No, the bastard was most likely going to leave Hermione with a bitter shell that might just latch onto the first guy that gave her a few nice words and even less deserving.

"I was out looking for a card for Ron and Lavender's anniversary yesterday."

Draco could understand why that would be an issue. It was a reminder that her friends were happily in ever after and she was not.

"Five years right?" He was sure of it but didn't want to be wrong.

"Yeah." She turned just enough to put an arm behind her head then. "Then I ran across this toy shop and saw this little boy in the window that reminded me of him."

Draco was use to her getting such flashes. She would spy something that triggered her feelings and it would just flood her with her squashed feelings.

"Had the face, the hair, even the damn posture. Do kids even have that good a posture?" She gave a harsh laugh then. "And the kid was look about something and well it reminded me of how he described being a child."

"So kid huh?" He knew she wanted to settle down at some point and have a few kids but given her squandered feelings, she didn't really have many chances for good relationships that led anywhere.

"Something like that." Looking at him then, she gave him a look that told him he didn't get it and she didn't care.

Rolling over she looked at the time on the nightstand.

"Somewhere to be?" He doubted as much, it was the weekend and she never hand many standing engagements.

"Doesn't matter." Turning over, she gave him a friendly peck on the cheek. "Thanks."

She extracted herself from the sheets and made quick work of finding clothes from the wardrobe before hitting the showers.

She was shutting down again. Her emotions overtook her, she suppressed them till she had to react and his presence only expedited the process with them in her bed.

He had suggested the idea back in the day when his attempts to cheer her up failed one by one. If anything, her process of dealing with her feelings was his fault. He had tried to get her to see the good in herself, the things that made the mystery man undeserving. He tried to find her projects and causes and things to go forth and conquer to take up her time and give her a sense of accomplishment. When that stopped working, he tried to cheer her up with gluttony but happiness could only be found in chocolate for so long. So one terrible cheering up dinner many years ago, he threw out that sometimes she should just try and find a rebound. Someone disposable to unload the love onto and leave. While the idea wasn't his best and while she was bad off, she at least understood the merits he tried to give in the idea.

Sadly for her, her reputation preceded her and finding someone to pickup and drop was easier said than done.

So after a succession of failed attempts at dating a few men who were more impressed with her name than her, she landed right where she started. A few nice dinners and no outlet of any kind.

It was one of his bolder moments and one of his more frustrated ones. Pushing her against the doorway to his balcony, he smothered her in his kiss just enough for her to get the point.

Having an outlet wasn't always about feelings. It was about getting through the feeling. Venting till the moment passed so you could get to the next.

Her shock not withstanding, she had slapped him for his insensitivity as a whole before telling him that it was easy for him to not care. He had the process of one nightstands and deadened feelings down to an art and it was expected of him. For her, she couldn't do the same and her circle was full of wizards who didn't see her in such a way. Short of going into muggle London, she was not likely to ever have a successful one night stand.

Whether it was a challenge or a plea, somewhere in it all, he became her standby. When it came to be too much, he would be the one she vented with. For her, she used him to get over the wave of how one made affected her. For her, she was using him to remember that regardless of her unrequited love, she could have someone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Standing In**

**Chapter 2**

She let the hot water wash over her.

Having placed a spelling to distort the sounds of the room, she knew she was safe to cry but wasn't ready to do so.

She knew she was weak and it showed.

It was the only way she could explain how one little sulking blond boy broke her so easily. Her day before had been fine, she had a lovely week and was being productive and getting things done.

It was when she passed by the toy shop that she saw the little boy holding a stuffed dragon of all things. Her mind was flashed with how much the boy reminded her of Draco, right down to the smirk that shone through the sulking sad look. Try as she might, she failed having any restraint and entered the store.

Asking the boy what was wrong was bad enough but to hear the small voice tell her he lost his mother only made it worse. It wasn't hard to find a sales counter and have the boy's mother paged. The hard part was to see that the boy's mother looked nothing like him.

The other woman was about Hermione's height and general build, even a similar wavy hair coloring. Looking between the two, she ran out of the store before the mother could thank her for finding the little boy.

When Hermione made the mistake of looking back through her tearing vision, she was graced with an image that would not be hers. She knew that the day where she would have a cute little boy who resembled his father down to the blond hair and clouded eyes would never be.

So like a robot she finished her shopping and enjoyed herself pitying.

She sat through her dinner of one knowing that there was no point looking up to the other side of the table hoping for her dream dinner companion. There would be no sly remarks or witty sayings to stimulate her mind into thought.

There was no point grabbing some wizard for dinner companion as the company would pale to what she really wanted.

So she ate in silence letting her mind bury her with wishes and truths. When her attempts at getting rest that night failed and she woke in the middle of the night, she raided her pantry and started to make batches of muffins for the week. By morning's light, she had an ample supply of baked goods to even send to the Burrow for the Weasley clan to enjoy for breakfast.

Venturing out shortly, she tried to get lost among the morning crowds only to realize that it wouldn't work. Stopping off at the shop down the road, she walked home with a few frozen dessert. If anything, she hoped their cold state would delay her from gorging on them and a vain wish that by the time she got home some trigger of sense would erase the feelings she carried over the years.

It didn't really and by the time Draco arrived to see her sad state, she had already polished off a package of toffee mousse something and moved onto the two layered triple chocolate cake.

She half listened to Draco's words as she tried to not yell out at him for both his insensitivity and his dense thought process. While she had never outright told Draco that he was her mystery man, it boggled her mind that he never connected the dots. It wasn't the biggest secret and she was sure time and again she gave out more details than required to figure it out.

In the end, Draco simply never got it and she factored it to the truth she knew.

He didn't see her that way and because of such, he didn't see the obvious to her problem.

So when he kissed her, she wanted to forget for a moment that he was dense. She wanted to believe he connected the dots. She wanted to believe he was being passionate and loving and felt as strongly about her as she did for him.

But then when all was said and done, he was just taking pity on her.

At most, he was making some distorted attempt to being a good friend and only that.

She left the bed before he could tell her to forget about her mystery man.

And in the privacy of the shower, she attempted to hold back the sobs of her pathetic emotions as she washed the guilt of her feelings. She knew she was robbing herself of a different future by carrying the torch for Draco. She knew she was cheating herself by taking his pitying of her. She knew she was only adding to her problem by accepting the pity with a shred of hope he would one day see her as more than a pity case.

If anything, she knew she didn't have to worry about him coming in to see her even sadder state.

They weren't lovers and he wouldn't have some strong desire to follow her unless it was out of worry for her emotional state.

So she tried to keep the rejection in, hoping that if she did, it would be less real. As if the whole sorry mess was less evident and her feelings for Draco were less crushing. Maybe then, she could go back to that time where things were platonic.

She could feel herself wish more and more with each kiss he ever gave her. Each touch, each look, she wished he had connected it all. She lied to herself a few times thinking that each time he finally did get it only to realize he never did.

He was being a friend, doing a service at best in his warped way.

So in the privacy of her shower, she let the sobs out.

She cried at how she loved more than his good looks and charms. She cried about how it was more than his money and status. She cried at the fact that it wasn't superficial and that the feelings had run deeper and had yet to fade with time.

She cried because he was sweet and kind and caring, even to her.

She cried that he could capture her heart so easily with kind words and just being her friend. She cried that the intense emotions he built in her would spark and explode to just only friendship for them and unrequited love for her to bear.

She cried at how it was unfair that the fates made her feel for him in ways he didn't for her.

She needed and wanted to get back to the time where his sweet gestures of bringing her the local delicacy of whatever far off place he visited was just because he was being a friend. She needed to not read into the fact that he would go with her to the movies because she didn't want to go alone.

It wasn't him thinking of her, it was his secretary picking up the gift. It was her pushing him to spend time with her as it was about the only muggle public thing he really did. She wasn't an exception because he loved her, she was just a friend.

She wanted to stop feeling like she did, hopelessly head over heals for him.

* * *

"My don't you two look lovely." Narcissa's kind words were just that, kind.

Hermione was failing again. A glimmer of hope ran through her at those words before realizing she was old reliable.

When Draco needed a proper escort to an event and was short on options, Hermione was the option. When he was sure that the next pretty thing would embarrass him, he would tell his hopeful date that Hermione was already asked.

And in turn, Hermione would jump hopefully when he asked her to go with him. Each time that spark in her would light thinking that maybe he would finally see her as something more than a friend.

She would smile and put forth her best effort to make him see her for her.

But then when he arrived at her place, he would tell her she looked nice and they would leave. It was never pretty or gorgeous or ravishing. No, he bordered on nice and only that.

No matter if she looked lovely with him or how good a time they had with each other or as a whole, it was just nice and platonic on his end. He wouldn't see as more than just old reliable.

A proper night out ending with her being returned home with a friendly thanks and nothing else but friendship. At most, he might stay back and talk to her out of pity for having taken up her time but not much else.

So she stayed by his side because part of her still wanted to believe he would see her as more than a good standby companion.

She smiled and nodded as he made the rounds from important person to the next. It was easier to be next to him clinging to hope and getting her dose of reality than to be across the room knowing how alone she really was.

She knew those moments would come where they would be separated and she would have to accept reality without the crutch of him by her side.

When he had to step away to speak to someone without her near, she was deposited with some society driven figure who raved about the last benefit that Hermione didn't attend. She nodded at the empty comparisons of how boring and uninteresting the venue was and was sadly saved not long after by Draco's mother.

If there was one thing about the crowd that the Malfoys frequented, it was that there was a hierarchy. There was a fine distinction between each level and if you weren't important enough, then you ceased to exist when someone more important arrived. In such, it was a signal to exit the vicinity.

So she traded one unknown for Draco's mother.

She did as she was expected and nodded and politely commented where prompted. Hermione really hadn't much of opinion on the color scheme used for the night and didn't have a clue about the trend of foods being used the current season or the ones before.

She really didn't care much for how it was all reminiscent of Narcissa's youth.

"Draco tells me you helped him pick out his dress robes." But that truth did get her attention.

While it wasn't too much of a secret between the women about her feelings for Draco, Narcissa had the discretion to never pry too much into the matter. As far as Hermione ever mentioned, it was a failed crush that was a hazard of her friendship with Draco. She had mentioned in passing once to Narcissa but mentioned all too quickly that there was no future in such feelings.

If anything, his mother had taken a healthy amount of interest and pity in her. She gave a slight nudge when the topic first came up but didn't object to the idea. His mother hadn't been quick to object to her infatuation and started to read into all the times Hermione had spent with Draco. When Hermione later mentioned that she was very aware of how little Draco thought of such an idea and how changing the friendship to anything else would fail all too quickly, Narcissa didn't object either.

If anything, his mother only asked to see gauge if Hermione was truly over the crush. It gave an indication of how much the two remained friends despite things on Hermione's end.

"I guess he just wanted a female opinion. He already knew what he wanted." It was true, Hermione had gone because he asked and it gave her a chance to ogle him in the robes he had his eyes on. He really didn't need Hermione there but he took her along because he was bored and she was free, or more specifically willing.

They could both see him across the room and he was perfect as far as Hermione could see. Not a hair out of place and everything was as it should be, perfect. Where Draco could don any outfit like a glove in a flash without a care and still look wonderfully sinfully put together.

It was the opposite for her, unless it was her comfortable jammies, she was out of her element. The right dress always eluded her and what she wore made her look and feel awkward next to his perfection. It was like putting platinum next to silver, both had the same color but one was clearly better than the other.

She knew she was fixated on him, the prompting to look his way made her follow his every movement and it made her feelings that much more sickening. She had long stopped thinking it was acceptable to still have such strong feelings for him and was always forcibly reminding herself that with each exaggerated look was one step closer to just being a stalker with unrealistic fantasies.

"You should come by for brunch one of these weekends, it's been a while since you've been by the manor." Narcissa was prone to offer such invitations over the years and Hermione was less and less likely to accept with time. "Lucius mentioned wanting to speak with you."

Even if the statement was true, Hermione would only speak to the elder Malfoy at Ministry.

She was head of muggle relations for the Ministry and given that Lucius Malfoy had taken to diversifying his investments to ventures that dabbled with muggles, it helped to have an official's opinion. If anything, Hermione's opinion could always be taken as a professional one and in turn, if Lucius thought it risky and Hermione had nothing good to say, Lucius would pull out of the venture. He might take risks with his money to further the family fortune but he didn't like risking where muggles were concerned and especially where the Ministry had a vague stance on.

"I'll have my assistant clear some time when Mr. Malfoy is at the Ministry next." Hermione didn't want to go to the manor and she certainly didn't want to risk going with Draco or going without him.

There was nothing to gain by going alone and she wasn't looking to befriend the elder Malfoys and in turn they might have treated her at the best of times a friend of Draco's. To go alone for Draco to arrive later had proved a painful experience a few times when he arrived after her with his witch of the week and she was the spare wheel watching as he made the introduction of his new bit of stuff to his parents. That was almost as bad as going with him knowing that she was just a friend who was dragged to tag along.

"Or you could come by tomorrow morning." Narcissa's firm tone before departing to speak to someone else was lost on Hermione.

If anything, Hermione stood by the column watching as Narcissa remind her of the world she was visiting for a night. Prim, proper and perfect. No one was insecure like Hermione and everyone knew their place.

And there stood Hermione, a sore thumb next to the perfection of the night hoping to remember her place enough to kill her feelings to a tolerable level of friendship.

Nursing the glass of wine Draco got for her before leaving her, she could feel the years of hurt and regret come to the surface. The times she wished for more and got just friendship.

The many times she tried as hard as she could to look as good and acceptable as all the other women that crossed his line of thought.

In the end, he didn't see it.

That Syltherin green dress she bought years ago to one of the Malfoy's annual New Years Eve party was met with him kissing someone else at midnight.

At most he thought it was cute she was trying something different and joked that she looked out of place in the dress. As far as he was concerned, her former house color suited her more than his. He didn't even bother to look past the dress color that year.

He didn't even once fake ogling the fact that the dress had a deep plunge in the front or a slit that was one inch too close to inappropriate.

No, Draco just didn't see it where she was concerned and she knew it with each passing instance they crossed paths.

Looking across the room again, she saw he had left the group he was speaking to.

She wanted to delude herself for another second to revel in the some faux Cinderella joy that she was beautiful and at the event with her Prince Charming but the reality was weighing too heavily on her.

It was stifling to bear standing alone knowing how much she had wished but never gotten.

Finishing her lone glass, she placed it on the tray of a passing waiter before question if she was free to leave yet.

Part of her hoped that someone caught his eye enough that he would send her home so he could chase after his prey under the illusion he had come alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Standing In**

**Chapter 3**

"How about Nowlin?"

Draco made a face at the suggestion. If it was possible, Blaise could only describe the look as the color green.

"How about someone less like you?" Draco didn't like the idea as whole. Given that Nowlin was someone who was getting on in age to the point that wedded bliss should be along soon, the man was still getting in a few rounds of fun and debauchery to the finish line. Just like Blaise had done prior to marrying Pansy.

"Nowlin's a good guy." Terrence Nowlin was a decent guy if someone asked Draco's opinion, so long as it was in relation to work ethics or general demeanor. Nowlin was not a good guy if the topic was in relation to setting Hermione up with someone.

"She deserves better." If anything, she deserved the best.

"And yet you can't seem to find anyone else for her." Blaise wasn't critical enough in his vetting process as far as Draco saw. "Seriously, she's not getting any younger and the options are getting slim man."

While eligible was the top requirement, adequate was a matter of debate when it came to Hermione.

Draco didn't like Blaise's idea of finding Hermione someone to fix the problem of her unrequited love. The big part of the problem was, Blaise was suggesting finding someone who could fill in for her mystery man and take the place all the way to ever after. It was worse than Draco's suggestion to Hermione to find Mr. Right Now as Blaise suggesting for Mr. Close Enough.

"She just deserves better." Better than what Blaise could drag out and better than any guy either of them knew by reputation or familiarity.

"Look, you want to find her a guy not too focused on a career but stable, someone who could charm her out of her slump but without a lurid history and still treat her right?" Blaise ticked off the general requirements that Draco had built and it was bleak.

"So if we go wholeheartedly into that, you've nixed every guy who's still working up to a career of some sort or the ones who are resting on their laurels as you've called those slackers. You've also nixed every guy who's been through the ages of eighteen to twenty something who hadn't a long term relationship of any kind and of those that did, you don't like them because of the potential ex factor. Not to mention, you've nixed anyone who's remotely has manners that still have a mother that's a live as you're worried of sticking her with a mama's boy. You do realize that you've put out a crazy tall order? Seriously, set her up with Nowlin and if it fails then find someone else for her."

Blaise tossed a broom maintenance kit Draco's way then as he headed towards paying for the few things they picked up.

"Right, because I want to be responsible for her next failed relationship." It was bad enough Draco was privy to Hermione's failed emotions, he really didn't want to make things worse. She meant too much to him to just case some loser her way.

"Did I forget to mention you didn't like the ones who work for a living as you worry they can't support her? Or the fact that you think any guy with money would be spoiled and wouldn't appreciate her?" Blaise shook his head at that. He had tried as best he could to help Draco through his dilemma of Hermione's problem. If anything, it was a strong case to why guys should have girl friends.

"It was a valid and still is a valid point." Draco knew too many men who were once spoiled brats and hadn't grown out of it and that was enough of a reason why they weren't good enough.

"You're making it hard to just find someone for her. No offense, at this rate you might as well just hopes she die quickly young and alone." The crass comment from Blaise was meant to bash a sense of reality in Draco's standards but it only made him angry at his friend's disregard.

"You don't get it." With that Draco threw the broom kit at Blaise's head before exiting the shop.

He barely heard the grumble of how Draco was an ass who spent too much time around Hermione.

Looking around, he watched as clusters of people flitted about their day.

* * *

"That one next." Ron pointed to ride across the way.

"I think we've already been on that one." It spun and went forwards and backwards and was really not that much different than the others.

"Humor me." Taking her arm, he pulled her towards the line of people eager to have their center of gravity tested.

"Fine." She knew what Ron was doing and she was mildly accepting of his idea if it didn't seem so pathetic.

She had gone to Ron and Lavender's place to drop off her card personally only to be ambushed by Ginny and Lavender. The pictures of the night before were heavily plastered in the society section and on display at the kitchen table by the other women. Both women had long ago unknowingly made many comments of how she was the only woman in Draco's life that he hadn't dated. It seemed they thought it was weird she was the exception to the women in his life.

If anything, they thought of him as a deterrent to her getting on in life. Spending time with Draco as much as she did and going with him to events like the night before only gave off the wrong image. They worried of how she would ever have a chance to date if she spent too much of her personal time with Draco being a friend.

When Ron had came into the kitchen, he quickly grabbed her and gave them an exit as he stated he hadn't seen her in too long and she owed him a day of her time.

Thus their early lunch led them to the traveling carnival.

She let him pull her along from one ride to the next. In the end, the world spun around her too many times to matter and Ron prattled on about all the things that happened since they last spoke.

"Just you and Draco now." The words got her attention. Looking at her friend through the candy floss, she wondered what she missed while on autopilot. "Not sure which one of you might get hitched first."

Right, out of their circle, everyone was married off but her and Draco. "Not sure."

Part of her would be ecstatic to be the next one married, it would mean she would be over Draco and her crazy heart was calmed again. Then she could stop looking at the blond friend and be angry and jealous that she wasn't more to him.

"I think it'll be you." The certainty in Ron's voice made Hermione wish she knew what secrets he was privy to.

"Ron," If there was anyone she could ask, it was him. "How did you get over us?"

There was no secret that romance had once been in the air for the two. Failed or not, they were still friends but they didn't really speak about the failure. Where Hermione worked through the breakup with some ease, Ron seemed to be the one who had a harder time back then.

He looked over her, studying her enough to see what bothered her. He had wondered if she would ever ask over the years. Then again, he was a captive friend to watching her feelings for Draco unfold. They got on well enough in the start but then it seemed that they got to the point where they got on too well and for a bit Harry and Ron threw out the idea of how bad it might be for Draco and Hermione to date. When the news of such a change never came, it was agreed between the two that the involved parties didn't have it in them to go for it.

It reminded him too much of his youth with her but the only difference was where Ron and Hermione tried for more, Draco and Hermione didn't.

"Like we agreed, we're better as friends." A conclusion that came with their attempt at dating and Ron surmised that the same happened with her and Draco over the years. Why risk a sure thing for something unknown? Not to mention, Hermione had jumped the friendship boundary with Ron before and it didn't end successfully.

"Oh." She knew it but that wasn't exactly what she was asking.

"Don't get me wrong, I still love you but it's not like the way I love Lavender." Not the assurance she was looking for either. "I guess I just knew that it wasn't enough even when I didn't want to believe it and when things got serious with Lavender, I noticed how true that was."

"Right." His answer was to date till something else came along.

"I use to be around you because it meant we were dating but then with Lavender, I use to just want to be with her, dating or not."

"Oh." The answer was getting more and more bleak. She was bordering on both sides of Ron's statement. She latched on to Draco wishing but at the same time she did so regardless of the current status.

"Someone on your mind?" He was a good friend but he knew he hadn't been around too much over the years. The days of seeing Hermione everyday at school was over and nowadays he saw her at random intervals that centered on events or one of them having enough free time to visit the other.

"Sort of." She took a good chomp of the candy apple in her hand then. "Not really."

She sounded like a wishy-washy teenager with a misguided puppy dog crush.

"Why the curiosity?" If one thing was to be learned by Ron after all the years, it was that Hermione didn't do things on a whim, especially if something was bothering her.

"It's silly." It all felt too silly for her. Mocking her life, her emotions told her how little control she had over herself. Where she could plan and work and do well at work and planning the rest of her life, the emotional piece of things refused to be reined in.

"Silly can be good." Noticing the stick Hermione chunked into the bin, there was no doubt _silly_ was bothering Hermione. "Or not."

"I guess I thought I'd found someone by now." Where parts of her screamed that Draco was that specific someone, reality was telling her she just needed to find someone more real to her.

Someone available and decent that was real and not a product of her overcompensating heart and imagination.

"Want some help?" He didn't like the idea of setting up his friend but if she was truly looking, he didn't like the idea of her going to Lavender or Ginny. He wanted someone he could check first by his own standards rather than that of his wife and sister.

"Maybe later."

She knew she had to try harder to get over Draco, she just wasn't ready yet. Part of her wanted to hang onto the overwhelming joy and euphoria that was loving Draco, it was the soul crushing hurt of being unloved by him that she knew was overshadowing the perks.


	4. Chapter 4

**Standing In**

**Chapter 4**

**Liam Browder**

_**International Portfolio Manager**_

Turning the card over, she looked at the neat scrawl of numbers. There was nothing spectacular about the card or the contents but it was an ends to a means.

Looking up to the door she left open some time ago, she could see her assistant Mel flirt with someone she wasn't familiar with. It seemed everyone around her had unlocked some secret about trudging through their personal life happily or just contently enough that the other details didn't matter.

Turning the card over again, she stared at the face daring it to give her some sense of reasoning, there was a secret to how everyone else went about finding someone and Hermione hadn't discovered it.

Maybe that was the point of how everyone else managed, they didn't need a reason or want to find one, and they just went about things as it was.

She had a few dinners with Liam over the last year. They weren't particularly romantic or great but they didn't leave her bored to tears. He was a nice looking bloke that didn't make her check her watch more often than not. Their dates usually ended at an expected time so she didn't feel like it was dragged out. Over all, he was nice. If there had been anyone who was characteristically her type that she ever dated, Liam was close to the best of the bunch. His mother was a squib who married a muggle so she didn't have any worries about explaining her magical nature. He was relatively nice and sweet, polite enough that her mother had been the one to initially give her Liam's card.

Her first meeting with Liam was business related. It was at his office one day where her parents were consolidating their personal finances to add her as the beneficiary as to ensure that everything was properly in order. Regardless of her being an only child, her parents were getting closer to the point where details of wills and next of kin were details to affirm and explicitly take care of.

Liam wasn't too awestruck with her name and was nice and polite and even been receptive to her mother's attempts at matchmaking.

At first she thought he was just being nice to her mother's attempts. When a week later when her mother gave her his card with the scrawl, she knew it was more than him being polite.

It was a lonely Wednesday interrupted by Draco asking her to help him remember where he left a pair of wayward cufflinks that made her desperate enough to call Liam.

Again, the finer point of Liam was that he was nice.

Not too much of anything and enough of himself. By all standards, she would have been bored but then she reminded herself that he was nice and there was nothing overtly terrible about him.

If anything, the only downside to her first few dinners was that he wasn't always free at the same time she was so it made making dates harder to pin down. They played it by ear, which was why it took them four months to get to three dates.

Turning the card over to the numbers again, she thought to her mother's inquiry the night before over dinner.

Was there someone in her life?

She hadn't seen Liam in over a month and for a few weeks of it, she remembered him mentioning having to work overseas to overhaul one of the branches or something of the sort.

If anything, it proved he was stable career wise, not a flake that jumped from job to job or passion to passion. He stayed the course and through their few conversations, he accepted the reality of his job and career field. Liam was the grounded kind who didn't live off of wishes and rainbows. He lived off of harsh numbers that were neither good nor bad unless they were red. His only response to bad days was a simple motto of faking it till he made it. Every action he spoke of, every way he turned his life into acceptable successes was a product of that motto.

Turning the card a few more times, she put it away. Maybe she'll call him later after work, maybe she could live with nice. She gave nice a chance and it didn't kill her. It kept her mind off of Draco for the bulk of a few hours and maybe if she tried harder, nice would be enough. Maybe, even if she had to fake her way to something else, maybe she would make it finally.

* * *

"You went out for dinner?"

She was use to Draco coming over to her place, even when she was out. He was among the few who had the privilege to do so.

Looking at him from the front door, she observed him flipping through the fashion magazine she only had because her mother bought a lifetime subscription to the year before Hogwarts. She rarely actually read it but Draco had a weird fixation with when he hung out at her place. Each new issue would have him going through each page till the end and only then did he really consider it old news.

"For a bit." She wasn't sure if it was really worth mentioning that she had dinner with Liam.

"How's Potter and Weasley then?" Not really looking up from the pages, he failed to notice that she wasn't in her work attire and was in her over worn little black dress. It was the very one he swore her to replace one to many uses ago but she never tossed from her closet.

"They're fine." The implication that he could only imagine her having dinner with friends stung enough to know he didn't see her as the dating kind.

"You're out of biscuits." He still had yet to look up while he waved an empty container at her general direction.

"Good to know." She doubted he noticed her dejected tone as she had it too many times in realization how little he thought of her as something other than friends.

"So, which one of the wives put their foot down this time?"

It wasn't so much that Ginny or Lavender kept their respective husbands at a curfew, it was the fact that each of her friends had children and wanted believed parents should be mindful to keep decent hours where going out was concerned.

Making her way to the bedroom, she ignored his question long enough to find a robe before casting off the old frock.

"I was out with Liam tonight." Padding back down the hall to the kitchen, she wanted a comforting cup of hot chocolate.

"Thought you didn't like the guy." Again, Draco failed to look up to see her cracking expression.

She had tried hard to be happy with nice that night. For all intent, she enjoyed nice with Liam. Sure Liam didn't get her rushed with joy at his compliments and the complements were generic and lacked all luster but at least they were there.

It was something and she had to replay as what it was, it was good enough. If anything, it should be and would less futile than hanging onto her feelings for Draco.

"He's nice." There was truth in the statement and she couldn't deny that nice was something.

"So you like him?" Only then did Draco look up from the pages of the magazine to look at her.

"He's nice." She tried then to smile like she meant it but could only focus on the fact that nice was better than nothing.

"Right." Draco saw through her attempt and waved it off like some child playing dress up, not to be taken seriously and in this particular instance not to be acknowledged for the effort.

It was further proof how much he tucked her into a role and refused to see it as anything else. If anything, she was starting to realize he didn't just see her as a friend, he saw her as the spinster friend. Without even asking, he had typecast her as the kind to not even be more than single and whatever miracle that might land her married was just that, a miracle.

* * *

"Lovely flowers." There were few instances where Hermione allowed them in her office and Lucius was familiar with the exceptions. In on instance, he was related to one of the exceptions.

"Thank you." She motioned for him to sit as she closed the door to her office.

Closing the blinds and placing the appropriate silencing spells and a few others to ensure privacy, she sat down across from him.

"I was not aware your birthday was today." He made a mental note to tell his own assistant to rectify the matter. "Quiet a modest arrangement from my son."

"It's not." She was quick to close the subject and he did like it. He liked knowing he had someone in the ministry who had some clout by position and name that wasn't bought by Malfoy money. Where Hermione had once, long ago, been a easy friend of Draco's and the Malfoy family, Lucius was quick to notice that the relationship had changed over time to something he didn't like.

Where he had once been able to talk to the younger woman in her professional capacity at the manor or even her own home, the alarming change to having to talk to her at her office was not lost on him.

Given that Draco didn't mention any falling out between the two, Lucius could only lay the problem as something Hermione concluded on and he didn't like it.

"I will tell him then." He also didn't like having to find his son forgetting the woman's correct birth day.

"I meant the flowers are not from Draco." She waved over to the arrangement in question. "Liam is going away for the week and wanted to send them ahead."

The introduction of a name he wasn't familiar with did not sit well with him. As far as Lucius knew, the only ones allowed to send on personal tokens to Hermione's office were close and trusted friends, no one else. He remembered having sent on a gift once to her office only to have the owl return with a note from her assistant that she didn't accept gifts at the office.

Something to do with perceived favoritism or some nonsense.

"I see." Accepting that she was unwilling to give more detail in the change to her personal circumstances, he let her continue with the meeting while he was in thought. She didn't think it to owe him anything of herself but the fact that he was losing a connection in the new ministry was something he was not relishing.

* * *

Lucius hadn't liked the way things ended with his meeting with Hermione. While everything appeared favorable, the clinical professional aspect drilled into him that Draco was failing as a Malfoy.

It was one thing for Hermione to no longer frequent the manor as much as she use to, with or without Draco. It was another thing for her to treat him like any other person who asked for her undivided attention at work.

Strictly objective and not even a mention of her personal life. He might not have always taken a keen interest in the younger woman's life, he did notice that she had long stopped straying in their meetings to speak of old friends and whatnot during their meetings. If anything, it was some of those random tangents that helped some of his ventures. A friend of Hermione's that was worth her mind straying was a friend that usually proved to be a useful addition to the investment. More often than not, when Lucius requested the remembered friend, they were usually quick to be of use by Hermione's name alone and just as quick to forget that a Malfoy was involved.

"Who is Liam?" This interloper who might get their foot in Hermione's door and oust the Malfoys didn't put Lucius at ease.

Narcissa looked over at her husband long enough to realize the question was directed at Draco before returning to the muggle magazine Draco brought by for her.

"Who?"

Lucius had a bigger dislike for his son's blasé life then. Draco was turning out to make fewer connections and being less useful as a member of anything as he aged. Now it seemed he didn't even keep up with Hermione.

"It seems Hermione received some flowers from a 'Liam' this week."

That got Narcissa's attention. Looking up, she saw her husband's annoyed brow as he eyed the distinctive file that Hermione sent him home with.

"He's some guy." A response that while Draco might have thought true, Lucius didn't like that sentiment that some nobody was wedging in to cut him off.

"It seems he's some guy who she receives flowers from at work." If his son didn't seem to understand the problem than he would have to find new ways to make the ministry useful. Exiting the drawing room, he had a long day in the office to find a way to cut the problem where he could.


	5. Chapter 5

**Standing In**

**Chapter 5**

She was out.

He was use to her being out for work or friends.

He wasn't use to be being out for someone specific.

Liam.

He didn't understand what it was she saw in the man.

Having been out to dinner with the pair, Liam didn't strike him as anything worth even mentioning.

So he didn't comprehend why she was still gave Liam any bit of her time.

Draco had figured she would've given up on the boring man one too many dates ago.

There was nothing about the man that pegged Liam as Hermione's type.

Liam didn't have much interest, knowledge or understanding the magical or muggle world. At best, Draco could describe Liam as average. This was not in relation to Hermione or even any of her friends, Liam was simply average as average went. So he didn't understand what it was she kept seeing Liam for.

The conversations that they seemed to have felt to him like two people killing time talking about the weather. Neither looked like they had some fixation to be around the other and yet she was out with the other man again.

Except this particular afternoon, she was late meeting Draco and he had gone to her home to find that she was not home and a box for charity by her door with her one and only broom propped amongst old clothes and random objects.

He noticed a few dresses he had seen her in only once and a few he never realized she even owned but it was the broom that got him. It was a limited edition Nimbus designed and personally crafted by Devlin Whitehorn. It was Hermione's first and only broom and Draco had even convinced the maker to add a few additional features for her given her fear of flying as a whole.

Draco had taught her to fly on his own older model Nimbus when she told him that she didn't care for it enough to try. After a few comments of her fear and his reasoning that it was unacceptable that she didn't even really know how, he forced her out in the garden of the manor one day and told her he wouldn't let her go home till she at least had the basics down properly. He spent the bulk of the day and even into the evening showing her the finer points of flying mechanics as well reasoning why her fears were irrational. She didn't really overcome her fear of heights but at least she knew how to fly if the need called for it.

It wasn't till some time later that realized he was a true friend to the witch when he told Harry and Ron the event. It seemed despite being war heroes and having Gryffindor courage, neither man had ever tried hard enough to get Hermione to be near a broom much less learning to fly. He had crossed a level of trust with her that was new even to her oldest friends. So when he approached her about going flying sometime later, she told him that she didn't own a broom of her own to do so.

So he bought her the rare broom in his euphoria of friendship and let her lecture him about the extravagance. She agreed to keep it despite him having to accept that the broom would collect dust more often than not.

For a good few months, her statement had been false as he was able to convince her to join him flying when he was bored. Reasoning that there was safety in numbers and she was a bad friend to let him fly alone, she came out with him more often than not.

He didn't remember when it was she stopped joining him and the sight of the broom in the box of things to be discarded irritated him

* * *

She was focused on the box of cupcakes Liam got for her along their way back to her place. He had come back from his business trip earlier in the week and asked if she would be free for a belated birthday lunch.

He thought cupcakes were more practical as they were set to be single servings and she couldn't deny he was right.

So when she opened her door to Draco's presence by the door, she was mildly put off.

"You're giving the Nimbus away?" He didn't even bother to look at the fact that he had scared her even the slightest and looked too focused on the broom in question.

"Harry's picking it up later next week." Putting the box of cupcakes down, she missed Draco's annoyance at her answer.

"It's your broom." To which he held the thing up to the engraving on the handle that had her name.

"Well I don't use it much anymore and since Harry's traveling more these days, a faster broom will help with his commute." She looked at the chocolate cupcakes before taking one out. "I told you this already."

It was true, she did mention Harry's work situation.

"You didn't tell me you were giving him your broom." A gift Draco didn't intend for Harry to make use of. "And your not using it is your own fault."

He was furious and she didn't get why.

"Yes well, true or not, I don't really fly so it's better off with Harry." Sound reasoning and she could only hope Draco could see it as such.

"And what about having something on hand for when you do need to fly?" A point of why Draco even wanted her to fly, it was a skill have when necessary and the broom was an ends to a means.

"Fine." She was use to Draco's unreasonable thoughts and their intended requests. "I'll tell Harry I've changed my mind."

"Good." With that he took the broom from the box and shoved it back into the closet at the front door.

"You can be so unreasonable." There was a time his unreasonable way drew her to him. It mirrored her unreasonable emotions and made him the exception to her life. The things she wouldn't do for anyone, the things she didn't put up for anyone, she did for him. And all it got her was to be just his friend.

"Well since you're dressed, let's go." Without regard to her confusion, he grabbed her arm and dragged out the door.

* * *

It was when they arrived at Diagon Alley, more specifically a curio shop that she remembered she was meant to met Draco that day. His snit for having to wait on her made her wonder why he didn't do his shopping on his own. He had better taste than her and was more up to date on trends and what was what, she was just another little voice.

She hadn't much of a clue on magical art aside from the talking paintings she passed on her way through life. So forming an opinion on the magical equivalent of a Jackson Pollock where the lines and dots moved with a mind of their own didn't really come to her.

The most she comprehended about abstract was that the level of the message was meant to be obscure and to each, their own view.

"I like the lines of this one." He held up the piece they had been observing, in her opinion far too long.

"But the shapes are rather bold here." He nodded at the neighboring painting to the right made of shifting cubes that morphed back and forth to varying shapes.

"Then get both." In all honesty, she was just expediting the process. Either he had a clear favorite or they were both going home with him. Her being there was just him having someone witness his purchase.

He turned his head to a slanted angle to watch one of the cubes become a sphere then.

"I've been meaning to ask." He took the cube painting and turned it upside down only for the pieces on the canvas to fall and right themselves. "Is Liam the guy?"

Not even giving the question some sense of importance over his purchase, he turned the Pollockesque painting as well only for nothing spectacular to happen.

"What?" She really hadn't brought up the topic of Liam often as she worried talking about him would ruin her hopes.

"Your mystery guy, is it him?" It was the only reason Draco could see why Hermione gave the boring man a chance.

"No." She hadn't wanted the answer to come so readily but the word left her lips before she could stop herself.

"Good." Draco turned to her then, nodded down at the cube painting he held in his hand, silently prompting her to agree to its merits.

"Yeah." He really was an interesting shopper.

"I didn't figure he was but better to ask." Waving one of the shop attendants over, Draco motioned to both paintings with a nod. "So, what is he, practice? Going to make your move to the real thing one of these days?"

His blatant assumptions and lack of regard only hit her harder then.

"Actually, no." Maybe Draco didn't get because he didn't want to but then again, he lived a life where he could have everything he wanted.

He barely registered her answer as he made arrangements for payment and delivery.

Guiding her out of the shop, she felt her feelings that much more disregarded.

"So I guess that's that then, when do you think you'll be done with him?" And then there was the salt to the wound. Hermione wanting to move on where Draco didn't see her really doing so.

"Actually, I don't think I will be." If anything, things were progressing along nicely and she saw that barring any big problems, maybe she might have a nice ever after with Liam.

And that got Draco's attention.

Outside the now Malfoy owned, postwar reopened Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour for they usual post shopping snack.

"What?"

"He's nice and I know he's not _him_, he's nice." A term Draco was learning to dislike.

"So, what about _him_, did he finally get married or something?" Draco could understand her desperation if that was the case. It was always sobering to see someone important to you get on where you hadn't.

"No." A fact that Hermione no longer hoped for as a solution. "I just have to accept is all."

The part where she still knew that Draco's current positioned hand in hers as they walked the main path prior to stopping didn't escape her. For Draco, it was an innocent act but for Hermione, it still made her heart flutter a little.

"What's that suppose to mean?" He wasn't use to her using someone else as a crutch. If anything, he was use to her leaning on him, not some loser.

"It means, I'm going to have to learn to get over _him_ and I should live with knowing _he_ doesn't love me like that. At least this way, if Liam is my future, I'll have something other than desperately clinging to my revisionist memories and wishes." Her pathetic justification to him was highlighted with a defeated shrug then.

Because that was what it became for Hermione, her own rewriting of Draco's innocent gestures as more than what they were. Her realization of her own wishes and amendments and amending her revisions to the truth.

Whether the answer was enough to settle his thoughts, she accepted that he dropped it long enough for them to order.

"So who is _he_?"

And that stopped her mid-scoop.

"What do you mean?" Given that the last thing they spoke of was Liam and her mystery, she hoped for Liam to be the subject.

"_Him._"

"Shouldn't …. doesn't matter." It didn't and shouldn't matter that such a question still got her feeling like a teenager making eyes at her crush. It didn't matter that the youthful face full of concern still made her feel special.

"Well if you're finally getting over _him_, I think telling me who it is can't hurt."

Putting down her spoon, she eyed the melting lump.

"Maybe not you, but it does to me." Looking at his oblivious face, it hurt even then with him not knowing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Standing In**

**Chapter 6**

If she had known her where her cowardice and courage would lead her that day, she might have just not gone back to her flat after Liam.

It was bad enough having to deal with Draco being petty about her being late. But then he just pushed and pushed about the very box she had hoped he wouldn't see. It was another step in her putting away her wasted feelings for him. It was the boxes of clothes she bought mainly for him. Everything from formal outfits she only used for him to ones she bought thinking she might need for him. Like the nostalgic piece in every closet that every woman kept to relive a memory, she had kept them all mentally remember that each one had built something and the unused ones were there for a reason. The bitter truth that each one kept her as a friend just didn't fit with her hopeful goal of getting over him.

So they were chucked into a box, the first few with care and the rest with anger and disappointment as she remembered the dreamy memories and wishes were platonic and tepid to the fantasy.

Even the broom that she only used at his request.

Sure he might have a slight old schoolboy annoyance at knowing that Harry would be the object's new owner but she saw it as a practicality. If it hadn't been for Harry's need for a better broom, the thing would be continue to collect dust and pending a right time, maybe sent back to Draco.

The fact that he didn't recognize the box for what it was to her and the them that hadn't been over the years, it was another stab at her emotions.

Even watching him through is purchasing processing was a pain of what kind of relationship they kept.

No matter what level of closeness they achieved with one another, to him and everyone else, they weren't anything else but friends.

Had he walked through Diagon Alley holding anyone else's hand or sharing his ice cream with, _The Daily Prophet_ would hint at his next girlfriend with such acts. No, such things didn't make the news to the public at large because it wasn't news because it wasn't anything out of sorts.

A truth she had quietly tried to settle over the melting flavors even when he asked about the whom it was that was behind her private emotional mess. Even when he accepted her girly vulnerable need to be left alone on the matter, her chance to go home to mull in the comforts of her own home had be robbed from her.

Upon their departure, they had almost literally run into his parents. Her ice cream frozen fingered hand in his, and not one of his parents looked at it with any suspicion of any kind when they imposed the idea of dinner for the four. No matter how much the whole outing made her laugh at her own absurdity, she knew the reality was needed to make her accept her place in his life. In the span of less than twelve hours, she had spent most her day with Draco doing things that friend Hermione was expected of where if any other woman had taken her place, it would have been enough to make headlines with captions of the next Malfoy wife in the wings.

So when the four had ended back at the Manor for after dinner drinks, she found herself that much more harshly reminded of what was and what wasn't. Even as the conversation had drifted between topics and was winding down to Draco and his father talking business and what she called the professional sport of office gossip, she sat knowing her place as a friend while Narcissa spoke of some event coming up.

Watching as the men were clearly moving further and further away to the other end of the room and that much more out of earshot, she wondered when would be a good time to make her exit.

"I always did love the place."

She nodded before knowing exactly what she had nodded to. It was becoming a habit she learned to keep around Narcissa. What she didn't realize was the older woman was keen to realize that she was being humored.

"Lucius can be very thoughtful when the mood strikes him."

And with the well placed comment Hermione's attention was pulled to reality. For a very humiliating second, the façade of trying to appear to give proper attention was gone and Narcissa saw a window.

"Draco never told you why Lucius reopened Fortescue's?" She didn't really wait for a reply. "Early birthday gift that year. I had gone through a phase when I was pregnant with Draco and started each day with a scoop from Fortescue's. I told Lucius one day how much I missed those days and well, a few months later he tells me that he heard the place was reopening. Never once did he tell me that he had put up the funds to have the place reopened."

Despite the frank openness of such a story from Narcissa, it was more blatant glance the woman made from Hermione to Draco that was more shocking.

"I see." No matter what hope Hermione had about keeping certain matters private, Narcissa knew enough.

"Draco told us you have a new friend named Liam." It was almost painfully hilarious at what the older woman's verbal wish was in relation to Hermione's mental wish.

"Yes well, I have been seeing a bit of Liam recently, I guess more as time goes one." A stab at both of them but there was no point in dreams and wishes in a manor where death and power was once king.

She caught Narcissa's glance as the father-son duo stepped outside to enjoy their nightcap.

"I guess it was bound to happen." And then the sliver of something else Hermione saw a few times came out that much more heighten in Narcissa's demeanor and Hermione couldn't help but look intrigued.

"It would have been nice to see if you ever gave Draco a chance but I guess it was never that serious." The very way his mother's sudden toast of lost chance and the clear indication of where the blame was placed only smacked Hermione that much harder.

"I never gave him a chance?" If anything, she had left herself open to any and all chances and had kept herself very single over the years hoping he would so much as blink twice at her. Now his mother saw it as a fault of not Draco's.

"You two really do value your friendship above all else." And the fault got bigger.

"But … but…" Where could she start? What could she say to stop the older woman's hurtful words?

"I guess he's lost that drive to be bold with age and you've used up all your courage in your youth." And the maybe that Hermione left hanging in the air was being stabbed at by Narcissa. "If only one of you tried earlier."

And for all of Hermione's wishes and dreams, the reality was always definitely something else entirely.

"And then what?" The hurtful truth was reality. "He would magically see me as something else? He would see me as more than a friend? He might see me as the woman he'd spend the rest of his life with? The one to have his children? The one who'd he'd grow old with? He can't even manage to keep a steady girlfriend. He rarely has one he hasn't used me as a standby for when he doesn't want to take whoever out to whatever function. The most sentimental thing he's ever said about any one of them was Liz Roman and was because he left his favorite pair of boots at her flat." No matter the wishes and dreams that plagued Hermione through the years that she fed with his friendship and charms, the truth still hurt her to the point of tears.

"I get it. I wished and I tried doing to things without saying it and he never got the message because he didn't want to. I've given up and he hasn't even any bigger a clue than from the start." She felt the tears coming. "I tried denial in the start, I tried anger. Hell, I've tried hoping for chance after chance thinking it would be enough and all any of it has done is made me realize how much more depressing it is to love him as anything more than a friend."

She could feel herself start to shake from the feelings that she carried. The slight tremble of her hands as they held each other in place while her body tried to maintain some semblance of a posture before she kept venting and making a fool of herself.

"No, I'm done. I'm accepting what I am and what I'm not." She could feel the shaking try to work its way through her body. "Whether it matters or not to Draco, I have to give someone else a chance now. I might not love Liam as much today or ever but at this rate, close enough is better than nothing."

Looking at her hands as they steadied each other, she felt her body feeling betrayed by the words.

"I'm sorry, I go." Looking at the turned backs of the men on the other side of the glass doors, she knew how out of place the display was. "It's late."

Nodding enough to save herself anymore embarrassment, she quickly tried to regain some composure. "Thank you for a lovely dinner and a lovely, I'll see myself out."

She didn't want to be excused and she didn't wait to extract a reaction out of Narcissa.

Had she given herself an extra second, she would have been subject to the woman's kind embrace of comfort.

Had she stayed an extra few minutes she might have known what the men were speaking of on the other side of the glass doors.

Instead, she briskly walked out of the room and ran out of the manor and past the gates and apparated home midrun.


	7. Chapter 7

**Standing In**

**Chapter 7**

His parents were Slytherins. For that, he was one too by blood, in environment, in upbringing, education and life.

So he should have known at some point in his life they had a certain hand in things and a certain expectation.

He had always thought of his friendship to Hermione as something special and precious. It was unique and while she had friendships of all levels with all kinds, his was a brand no one had. There were singular things in his friendship with her that could be shared with any other friend of hers. Things he could and never dared to have someone else stand in her place. Sure she had gone to the movies with the likes of Harry and Ron but he doubted either man ever willingly sit through a chick flick with her.

She was the one he would let cheer him up when things got bad. When a girl left him, she would come over with a few pints of ice cream and ciders while he hexed and flung whatever about to make him feel better. She was the one who sat and listened at all his stupid mutterings about any ex and what news he was subjected to hearing because he wanted to pass the unwanted news on to someone else.

So when they had dinner that night, he had his own thoughts and his own gratefulness that some things would always be. He had questioned that Liam would rob him of his friendship.

Draco was not raised to share and he certainly wasn't raised to play nice with others. Tolerate was the most he was raised to do in that respect. So when their outing had gone as any other, he was glad that late or not, he wasn't coming completely second to some interloper. He could live with her being late.

He could live with hearing his father's talk of business and whatnot drift towards other subjects when his mind had drifted to what flavor at Fortescue's would be sampled the next trip out. He could wave his father's inquiry about his martial status as he thought of how many more trips it would be before the whole of Fortescue's was tasted and the favorites would be given a second chance. At the rate things have gone, it would be a few more years.

So when his father brought up the topic of Liam again, he felt angered at why the insignificant man mattered all of a sudden.

So whether by sheer need to cut the topic off or design of a certain kind, he was graced to hear the whispered tail end of his mother's conversation with Hermione.

And it reminded him how independent Hermione was. Friendship or not, special or not, Liam was being given a sense of importance regardless of all else.

So for all of Draco's cutting thoughts and blatant attempts to disregard the other man, Hermione would give the man a level of importance on principle.

Already he knew he would have to play nice and share in a way he didn't like. It was one thing to know she was in love with someone she elevated to a grandiose level. At least with that man, he felt like her judgment was passed with some sense of reason that he could accept and know that he wouldn't be competing with as the oblivious prick was too dense to do anything and she too pessimistic to try. But to know that some creature named Liam was just might one day be a permanent placeholder, well that was not good.

As far as he was concerned, she deserved better than a placeholder. She deserved the best. She was magical and special and she was dear and unique to him and loathe as he would to lose her in any capacity, knowing that she would stoop down to settle made him wish for more for her.

* * *

"Have dinner with me tonight." The idea came to him when they were out and now he was putting a thought into play.

Between her looking at the merits of the recipe cards she got from their trip to do her weekly shopping, she nodded without giving it much thought.

"Chicken?" She held up the card more clearly for him to see the devised image of a perfect meal. "It'll give me a chance to try this out."

And for his play, she didn't get the message. Where any other time he would have been fine with her twisting his words as a suggestion they simply have a meal together, he had a different plan.

"I meant, let's go out tonight." He hoped that would be clear for her.

"Oh." She nodded still as she put a few things away. "It's been a while since we went to that place at the corner. That'll be nice."

And again she wasn't getting his message. He didn't want to just have a meal with her.

Rising from the bar stool he was on, he crossed the island and turned her from her task of putting away her shopping. Making sure to straighten her enough to be out of reach of her bags and to be upright to look upon him, he tried again.

"Have dinner with me tonight. I don't want you to cook, I don't want us to go to some hole in the wall we've been too a million times over. I want you, after I finish to go out and spend the afternoon finding some perfect dress that's only intended effect screams date, I want you to get your hair done and whatever makeup on or whatever it is you do that the dress compels you to do. I will be here at eight to pick you up and we will go some place wonderful and go from there." If she didn't get the hint before, he was sure she got it then.

"You can be so dramatic." And with a swat of her hand, he knew she still didn't get it.

"You can't be serious." He had all but laid out a perfectly outlined bulleted list of what and order of steps and she missed what he was telling her.

"Eight then." She shrugged before turning enough to take the carton of eggs to stack into the fridge.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" It was a valid question if any. He had actually asked her out and said as much and she didn't get it.

"What?" She didn't even so much as turn from the fridge as she straightened the contents. "I said I would have dinner with you, again with the dramatics. Did you have a fight with your father again?"

He didn't even know how his father played a part in any of it but that wasn't something he'd let her start to sidestep him.

"I just asked you, I just told you so, with details and nothing." He raised his hands in frustration then. "What part of that wasn't clear Hermione? Was it part where I wanted you to go get dressed up? The part where I wanted you to invoke some girly glee of dating? The part where I told you that I would be here later to whisk you away for said date?"

Really, he didn't see what it was she didn't get.

"Right, dinner. Eight." She still hadn't turned much or changed her tone. If anything, she was finding a new fascination with checking the expiration of the contents of her fridge. "Think I'll have much use the rest of this before next month?"

With a bottle of sauce he didn't have a clue the uses to, she proved the point that she didn't get the message.

"Explain something to me." Taking the bottle from her hand, he tossed without a care to the clattering sound it made as it landed in her fridge before he closed the door and dragged her bewildered self to sit as the looked at her dead certain one of them was crazy.

"I just asked you out on a date and nothing but that twerp Liam pencils in time to see you and you're practically giddy in comparison." He knew he would start sputtering from shock soon but he wanted to continue that much more.

"Is it boring that you like? Is that what your dream guy is? Dull and boring? The kind that gets turned on by wool socks and thinks risk is walking out the front door?" He wanted to keep ranting and raving but her calm blank expression broke then and before anymore questions could really get far, he saw the tears form.

"Why are you doing this?" He could feel her arms start to shake and he knew he pushed to hard this time. "All I wanted was a chance." She let out a small sob long enough to violently shake herself enough to stop whatever it was. "I know you don't like Liam and maybe he doesn't make me deliriously happy but at least he tries enough for the both of us."

She got up then, ducking from his presence she went back to the task of putting the last bag away.

"I don't need you to take me out to remind me that there are better times to be had with anyone else. I don't need that kind of pity. I know where I stand. I also know how much I have to settle for." She turned then to him, the tears she fought to keep clearly kept at bay. "I will have to accept that guys Liam are it. I don't need you to show me something else to remind me of it. I'm tired of dreaming Draco. I'm tired of wishes and things that go no further than my mind. So yeah… dinner tonight, eight. Fine."

And in that second he knew their friendship had changed. Liam or not, it was guys like Liam that was changing his dynamic with her.

"So he's just a stand in." No matter the importance of the role, it was the ease of how the position could be filled that he wanted to clarify. "Doesn't mean anyone else could isn't going to take his place."

Not a question but she nodded nonetheless.

He knew he had lost something to guys like Liam, but he didn't like sharing. "So let me stand in then."

If she could look more broken and crushed, she did then. The tears were damn near ready to break her. "What?"

"You deserve better and if you can't have your dream guy and if Liam's your only other option, well, I'll be it." He was stepping up. He was going to sacrifice their friendship at the risk of her settle for some loser who didn't deserve her.

"What?" She shook her head then.

"I'm single, not likely to find the next Mrs. Malfoy any time soon and if all you're really looking for is someone to hold a spot, well I'm putting myself in." He tried to reason it out in a way she could accept despite the fact that she had yet to stop shaking her head. "Your friends like me well enough and I'm damn certain they like me better than Liam and we get on well."

All points he had rolled around earlier before he asked her to dinner.

The tip of how he saw it as a solution.

For however long she would go for it or however long she needed it, he would be her guy. Maybe he would cease to be her friend, but at least she would have someone and it was him. He knew he cared for her more than Liam did and on any given day, he knew he had it in him to love her more emotionally than that clinical reasoned attachment she and Liam had for each other. Maybe she was really give up on love and it saddened him to watch her choose Liam as close enough but he knew for a fact she was happier with him and he would feel less depressed watching her around the lesser rift raft if he was the ponce who was her stand in.

Whatever it was he thought he was appealing to that would win out, whatever process he thought would be enough to solve the Liam problem, he knew he lost when she stopped shaking her head to look at him.

For one second he saw through her tear flooded eyes and saw that as far as he was concerned, she didn't think he got where she was coming from.

So when she stepped in front of him, he wanted to think that his utter foul upon their friendship would be easily be forgiven soon enough.

But then when her shaking hands held his face just long enough to get a firm hold, he knew he was wrong.

In his shock of his utter hubris, he could barely relish any feel of her lips on his as she hastily removed herself and out of the room and out of the flat.


	8. Chapter 8

**Standing In**

**Chapter 8**

At 8 PM he had thought he would be out at some dimly lit restaurant by a fireside table with a specific beautiful witch who would be smiling as much as him enjoying each other's company. He had envisioned himself to try and be perfect and romantic and dashing and all the things that his reputation was. He was sure that it would bode well enough that by the end of the night, she would be more than in awe and would be somewhat shocked by joy that she would see that stark contrast of their dinner to the whole of her relationship to the man named Liam.

Then when their prefect night was done and another was ready to being secured, he could bring up the topic of being in Liam's replacement, even in small increments. For as long as she needed and as long as he would do, he would give up being her friend to fulfill that need of her life for something else if it that was what she needed to find happiness. At least if she was going to settle, he rather she settled on someone who could have a better chance to delay the hurt of disappointment that would come one day.

He didn't like her being disappointed in life. He had watched her live through her disappointments before knowing she was better than each one of them. Where all of his was deserved, she was the kind that was meant to walking into fields of warm sunshine and clear days without a cloud to rain on her life. So when she was promoted a few times over at the start of her career based on her name alone, she was disappointed at how little of her work people felt mattered. When anyone didn't take her thoughts or actions seriously without her blatant flaunting of who she was, she was that much more knocked down by how bias the world was to who a person was than what they were.

She was all the lessons you were suppose to learn as a child and cherish and she was meant to keep most, at least some of that. Knowing all the childhood truths that weren't so in adulthood for her made him wish she got something in the end that was worth her. Something equal to all those happy fables and lessons that made the human spirit better.

Even when she had told him years ago of the lucky bastard that had unknowingly owned her heart, he thought of all the things she deserved from it. All the happily ever afters that she would get in her later years with it, till he learned of her realization that she wouldn't.

That happy that love made her, made her something she didn't deserve to be, hurt. Broken in spirit and broken in nature, she saw the years past as a sign that she didn't deserve any happy ending because the world didn't work that way, at least not in practice and nothing would be enough to make it happen as anything else.

So for some foolhardy thought that morning, he forgot he was the son of a convicted man, he forgot he was a former Death Eater from a family of such who's family tree was riddle with as much disgrace as it was reverence. For a need to make her happy in some semblance of what she deserved, to make her what she was, he thought he could be the one to have a small idea to making her whole again. Maybe he wouldn't be the one but at least he was better than the stand in she was using. He knew her well enough and for all the years of friendship and happiness she brought him, he owed her the chance to be the happy she wanted on her terms.

If she wanted romance, he could be it, make it, buy it and do so however he could if it was what she wanted. If she wanted a companion, he would be willing to be one. Hell, if she wanted a husband, he might even do so if she was sure enough of it and didn't mind his family's reputation preceding him and all the vile that went with.

He didn't expect her to really say no. He didn't expect her to simply walk out on him with such a somber tearful exit.

So in a vein of hope that only she had instilled in him, he arrived at her place at 8 PM dressed for a date hoping that maybe she had changed her mind.

Her dark empty home made him realized that his reputation was more than that as it was more his nature and his nature was terrible and broken and he had broken something fragile in his relationship with Hermione.

* * *

"He just doesn't get it." She had said it a many times already. On the floor of her childhood bedroom, she sat up a little to lean against the foot of the bed to scoop a large spoonful of the chocolate ice cream from Ginny's container.

"Men can be useless that way." Ginny shook her head remember her early years with Harry. "Especially that one."

"I don't want borrowed time from him. All or nothing. He really thinks I'll go for a few bits and walk away that much more easily?" She gulped down another spoonful that would give her a brain freeze for sure.

"He doesn't know better." Literally and then some.

It was then her mother walked in with reinforcement of one very diet unfriendly cake before bidding them a good night.

Looking over at the digital clock as it neared the start of another day, she was glad her mother hadn't tried to lecture her on Draco's ignorance and her silence.

"I've had years of him being nice and pleasant and whatnot and every one of those memories is hard enough." With that she took a scoop of ice cream and stabbed at the cake.

"I know." Ginny was somewhat in the loop of Hermione's feelings and always been on the fence of the issue.

Where she could see where the feelings were strong and wonderful for the two, she could see Hermione's side of reality where the one sided feelings might always be so.

"Liam isn't that bad right?" A question Ginny had more than exhausted the merits and faults of.

"He's nice and stable." Both merits and faults depending on the intended point. "What the hell could Draco have against him?"

Ginny wasn't sure but she had an inkling earlier in the night and had sent her better half to look into.

* * *

He wasn't exactly having a wonderful slumber but the awakening wasn't what he was use to.

The initial kick to his shin was bad enough but the feel of his feet hitting a harsh surface was more than unwelcomed. It was as unwelcomed as the two faces that stared him down.

"Do you know how hard it is to find you?" Waving off Ron's question, he sat up enough to stretch, completely missing as both Ron and Harry appraised his still date ready attire.

"Obviously hard enough." He shook a bit of his sleepy legs then as some of the feeling started to come back to them.

"You alright Malfoy?" No sooner had the question left Harry's lips did Ron's backhand meet Draco upside his head.

"Ow." Violent waking, violent treatment, all things he was use to.

"You really know how to cheapen her feelings don't you?" Before an answer could be given much less one of confusion for the question, Ron smacked him again.

"Ron, give it a rest." Harry nodded for his friend to sit down on the lounger on the other side of the coffee table then.

Waiting for the friend to do so, Harry sad down on the coffee table to assess Draco.

"Seeing as you two had to find me, guess she didn't send you to kick me out." He had fallen asleep on her couch waiting for her to come in, it was his futile that he could fix the mess he made and like his family's luck, the solution didn't come.

"Let's start with the known, did you ask her out this morning?" Harry lack of answer to Draco's statement and question made him feel like a suspect.

"Yeah, and?" He knew he screwed up, done it before and done it on many levels. Few of which required Auror treatment.

"Did you actually offer to be Liam's replacement?" The strangled usage of replacement and Ron's body shake to the question only evoked a look of disgust from Draco.

"It's not like I threatened to kill the man." A very valid point given the treatment he was getting. "And no, I don't plan to." A point he needed make clear if his friendship with Hermione was thoroughly broken.

Harry shook his head then as Ron threw his arms up before walking out of the room with a few mutterings.

"What did he say?" He didn't have to be a Malfoy to know that Weasley was talking about him.

"Worry about that later." Harry shook his head then. "You're a real piece of work Malfoy."

Getting up enough to look in the direction of Ron who was most likely raiding Hermione's kitchen, he casted a judging eye at Draco. "And we thought Ron was the dense one."

He smacked Draco then and nodded at Ron's general direction as two bottles came hurling through the air for Harry to catch.

Passing one to Draco, he plopped down next to him as Ron did the same flanking his other side.

"Seriously are you just that broken or is something really just wrong you with you?" Running a hand through the mess of his hair, he gulped down the bottle.

"Told you, she can't help it with the wrong ones. Crookshanks, remember?" With that, all three men raised their bottles to Hermione's long past pet.

"What does that furball have to do with anything?" Draco remembered the insufferable beast that ruined most of his shoes, he might have not had the same attachment as Hermione, he knew she loved the thing dearly and was there with Harry and Ron to bury Crookshanks at the Burrow.

"She's our friend." Again, whatever the point, he didn't catch and looked between the two for a better answer.

"Only she could be friend with any of us and only she would be friends with all of us." With a wave between all three of them, Harry took another gulp as Ron took the task of explaining.

"Harry here spent the bulk of his years being chased to death and in some ways, literally and yet, didn't scare her off in the least bit. First year should have done her in but it didn't." Raising his bottle to Harry, the mantle was passed.

"Ron's not the best in the pack and that's within his family and the sentiment is even among family. Terrible on first impressions and lucky to squeak by as the rest goes but she still doesn't make too much of a face when most of his food lands outside his mouth than in." With that Harry looked down at the three pairs of feet resting on her coffee table. "Case in point, any other person, she'd hex off the table after the first warning."

He had seen so a few times.

"You …" The wave of Ron's bottle in Draco's general direction then. "Well, you're you."

Faults and all.

"We all know Crookshanks. She loved that one for reasons only she has cuz that thing rarely liked any of us."

It was a well placed accepted theory that Crookshanks would more quickly and more easily and less painfully warm up with a fire than any of the men currently defiling Hermione's coffee table. Where Crookshanks could sit in Hermione's embrace with ease and a good nuzzle, Ron, Harry and Draco had more than once had the pleasure of Crookshanks digging claws and fangs into both cloth and skin to find a comfortable position.

"And?" Draco really didn't get how Crookshanks merited to what happened.

Crookshanks was her familiar, he protected her and was her companion. Harry was a damned hero and Ron was just good.

"Grief, dense as a brick." With that Harry smacked him again, this time with the butt of the bottle. "Just drink. She'll be fine in the morning."

So they did till her meager stores were drunk dry.


	9. Chapter 9

**Standing In**

**Chapter 9**

He had a terrible week and he was sure the world knew he was on the outs with Hermione. Divine intervention was continually giving him one at any given turn and he hadn't a moment of redemption to save him. No wonderfulness to make him believe in the good and sunlight.

When he went by impulse to see her the following day because the broom shop had lost the one he dropped off to be inspected the week prior as something seemed off, he thought the world was off kilter a little. His was a new and improved version of Hermione's that was not only a part of small family of the limited edition it was born from, the clerk just hadn't even registered the description and called him the confused one.

The problem was, she wasn't home when he went by and he had to accept that she was at her parents for the weekend.

When he finally did get the broom back Tuesday and thought to take it out for a causal jaunt, he didn't think that the clear weather would turn on him and was more focused that the stiff controls were truly worked out of the broom. So when the wind had picked up and the rain pelted him before he could register finding covering, the broom had a mind of its own and decided to nose dive him into the middle of the pond of some park.

Oh sure, the controls weren't stiff, only problem was, his broom tried to kill him. So we went to her place so she could talk him out of raising hell at the shop. Except she hadn't been in yet and was more likely still at work.

When he stopped by the shop on Thursday to check on when the problems might truly be fixed, the clerk inquired what it was he wanted fixed in the first place as they didn't see what was wrong with the broom. If anything, he was more than sure a broom more willing to kill the rider was a big problem.

So he yelled and made a scene before storming out like a child and went directly to her place so she would listen to the tail end and then drag him back to make nice.

Except she wasn't home and by the time he popped back later that night, she was fast asleep and he hadn't the heart to wake her for his problems.

He knew she wasn't avoiding him on purpose make things worse. It was her solution. A weird truce of a cooling off, a means to a reset but he wanted his friend back.

And so, when he saw her buying flowers at the shop not far from her home, he stepped in to pay for them before she could.

"Thank you." She had said it before when he paid but now they were taking the long way back to her place and he nodded. More or less he was glad she didn't run at the sight of him.

"I'm really sorry." He looked at the bunch of calla lilies in her hand wondering if their meaning had anything to do with them.

"I'll be fine." She threw the comment off to seem as if it was truly going to be fine but he knew he should clear the air some more before she buried it before he had a chance to explain well enough.

Leading her off to a bench, he placed a few spells to ensure they wouldn't be easily overheard or noticed.

"Look, I didn't mean to disregard your feelings." If anything he wanted to acknowledge them and quit being so helpless to her plight.

She shrugged at that. "It's not you. It's me, I know."

He could see her logic and nodded a bit but didn't say so. "Yeah well it's not Liam." He mentally smacked himself for not keeping that thought internal as she made a face.

"Can we not talk about him right now?" He was sure it would a while before he would be allowed to speak f Liam.

"Okay." He reached over to take her hand in his, enjoying the delicate digits that were petite to his, he knew how much he treasured her. "I screwed up. I hate knowing that you're settling. You deserve better and I always thought you knew it." He was inclined to let the hand go for fear that his tainted history would pollute her as he spoke. "Hell, I figured you'd get it one of these days. You deserve to be happy, to smile, to enjoy life. To live, not to bear through it with just enough."

She gave a laugh at that. "You really don't get it." He could see her weigh the thought of pulling away then.

"I'm sorry I don't. What I do get is, you put up with me. For reasons I don't know, you do and for the reasons I know you shouldn't, you don't care."

She gave another laugh and then she pulled away. "You really really don't get it."

It was then she got up and smacked him with the bunch of flowers.

"I'm trying to say I'm sorry." The most important part of what he wanted to make clear before her anger and emotions stopped him from speaking.

She didn't cry and she didn't yell, if anything, she stood looking down at him. Shaking her head a few times she gave a few small laughs. "You really just don't get it."

She smacked him with the abused bunch of flowers again. Dropping them to his side she clenched her hands and for a few moments he wondered if being her punching bag would really make it all go away. Either way, he would gladly be one for her.

She expelled an exasperated breath before bringing her hands to the sides of his head before retracting them to clench again.

She laughed again.

"It's you." With an accusing hand in his direction, she tried to direct the words from her lips but they didn't come so readily. "Damned to all you."

She turned and took a step away and while he was ready to go after her, she turned back. "You really will never get it."

There was a feral growl of frustration before she stalked back to look down at him. "How can you really just not? I mean Ron get is and I didn't say anything or even explain anything and he gets it. It took him forever and got it." She looked around at their surroundings before looking back at him. "I love you you're a dense, crazy, brain-dead, oblivious, head up any another skirt but mine git. I'm one of your quidditch buddies you do can crassly offer to lean a hand with when a problem arises by filling in for a pickup game. You can't just offer to be some kind of boyfriend till I get over you. Not how it works Malfoy." She shook her head long enough for his brain to barely hear the words. "I wanted more with you. I wanted a life, I wanted to think there was a chance, hell I wanted you to get on so I know there wasn't. Then you do stupid things like sleep with me and tell me my boyfriend's a loser and then tell me you'd take his place. Seriously…" She wrung her hands at him again before picking up the bunch of flowers to hit him again. "DENSE!"

She smacked him again with the flowers before walking off with the bunch.

This time for good, when she reached the rubbish bin, she tossed it in and kept going.

He was still stuck on the part before dense, the part before git, mostly the small large part after her blurb about Ron.

Then it clicked little by little. The guy she loved. The one that her friends didn't really get at first. The one she was mostly friends with but loved.

He ran after her fast enough to catch up to pull on her arm to get her to turn back to him.

"You love me?" This was big. This wasn't like she loved him because he was willing to water her plants when she was away or run some errand that was out of her way. This was bigger.

"You're kidding me right? You cannot still be that dense? What? Did the flowers really hit you THAT hard?" Her disbelief, while reasonable was a mirror of his.

"Why?" He had a million reasons why not, it was the same million reasons why he was always surprised they were still friends.

"Because you apologized to Neville." He didn't have a clue what she was talking about.

"You" He pointed to her. "love me?" He pointed to himself then, pretty sure the universe hated him. "Because of Longbottom?"

"I love you because I know you're my exception and I thought you might have loved me because maybe I was yours." With a frustrated growl, she yanked her arm free before stalking off again.

Her point not clear and he that much more lost. Following quickly after, she was sure to match his efforts and he knew her well enough that she would continue to do so till she was free of him.

Falling back, he waited till she rounded the corner before apparating to the destination he knew was her finish line.

* * *

The minutes he got gave his mind a chance to mull things over. Mostly, he was sure she was right about a few things and when it came to Hermione, if she was right, it was more than dead certain.

Settling on her couch, he broke open the tin of biscuits she kept on the coffee table and waited for the clicking of her front door to be followed by her entrance.

"You're right. I am dense." He chomped down on the biscuit then. He was sure he gave her a start. "And I don't get it."

He really didn't. "How the hell can you love me? I'm, in your words, selfish, spoiled, lazy, and useless. Not to mention, to give a nice spin on the thoughts of some of the people we know, the rotten apple of the dead decrepit tree." An abridged summarization she knew well.

"In regards to the latter, Millicent was spiteful when she said that and you cannot find one of my friends who think that. As for the rest, I usually call you that when you barge into my office thinking I have nothing better to do than spend the day with you."

"Still true." All too true in his mind and he knew it longer than he was friends with her.

He heard the click of a door handle then before a bit of shuffling.

She stood in front of him with the broom he had told her to not give Potter.

"I told you many years ago I hated the thought of flying. I told you I wouldn't fly and you didn't take no for an answer. You pushed and I told you every excuse I ever had. Even the one about your stunt in first year with Neville's Remembrall. I saw Neville on my home that week you taught me and he told me what you said."

He vaguely remembered much of anything significant about Longbottom.

"You apologized to him for using it to taunt Harry." It didn't sound like him but if it was something to do with Hermione, he didn't doubt he did as much.

"I guess I did." Not really much in his opinion.

"That's why I love you." She tossed the broom at him. "That's why I went out flying with you every stupid time you asked because YOU asked." She shook her head at him. "Seriously dense, you know that?"

He was kind of getting it. Using the handle of the broom, he pushed her closer to him enough that she lost her balance fell on him, he wanted to see if he still had something.

"You can't love me." He was sure she didn't want to hear it and he was sure she was expecting it. "I'm a terrible man. I've done terrible things and you should be out there loving someone else." Making sure he had her in his grasp, he rolled them on her couch to pin her down to the cushions with his body.

"Draco, please don't." He could see the tears form at her broken words.

"I make you cry, I spent years not getting it and right now, all I want to do is be a selfish git who doesn't care." It was a valid argument that he was inclined to agree with wholeheartedly. "Nothing about me deserves you but day after day and year after year, you put up with me. You let me crash at your place when I'm hiding from my parents. You even lie to them when they come looking. Something you don't do for Ron or Harry."

If she believed there were exceptions he made, he knew she made many exceptions for him and he knew why now.

"I never earned any of them from the start but you gave it nonetheless and everything I've since can't make up for any of it. So no, you can't love me because I don't deserve you. I barely deserve to be your friend all these years and now I know you love me and I know I deserve you even less."

He was the rotten apple and yet she still wanted to take him into her home.

"Please stop talking." She was crying then and he knew he was the cause. It wasn't just his words, it was all the years he didn't get it. All the times he didn't see her for what she was other than a friend. All those times he was just glad she gave him the time of day, now he knew she thought the same on a deeper level he didn't think possible.

He let her have her tears as she cried against his shoulder. When she stopped trying to push him off and let it out, he felt like a cad but he wanted her to let it out. He was tired of know that she kept something so important from him. He waited till she stopped and she started to find herself again.

Pressed against the man she loved, having cried like a child.

"Could you please let me go?" Her voice was shaky but her body was stronger and had be been any weaker, she might have been able to push him off without asking.

He let out a contemplative hmm to her request.

"That's the thing. Like you said, I'm selfish, spoiled, lazy, and useless." He could feel her find strength in his words. "So I think I'm going to be just that right now. Screw trying to be better or good or some crap." He gave a slight shrug then.

Grinning down at her, he was kind of glad for once she didn't get what he was going to say.

"Okay, well, nice and all but I told Liam I was going to see him today and I kind of need to get up."

He let out another contemplative hmm to her request.

"And yet I don't think you get it." He smiled wider then. "I plan to not get up just yet. There's this amazing witch I've known and thoroughly don't deserve who I recently found out loves me. If anything I am more than sure she adores me too. So I'm pretty sure she wouldn't mind if I didn't move just yet because I'm selfish and have yet to figure out what the best way to get rid of her boyfriend. I've already offered to take her out but given she ran out on me the last time I asked, I'm just more inclined to just not move." With a slight shrug, he wondered if she got it then. "That isn't to forget, I think she's the most amazing thing ever who for some reason has put up with my terrible self and that's more than deserves a good lie in to contemplate a solution."

And then he saw that spark of joy in her, a sliver of innocents that was Hermione. The bit of her that believed in goodness and light that he once remembered her term derogatorily as Carebear crack happy.

"So if you don't mind, I'm going to stay as is to some extent while I think of ways of being the tosser's replacement like I've been trying to do since the week prior and then contemplate how much of a replacement I can get away with before the amazing witch in question realizes what a loser I am and goes looking for something better. And when that happens, I'm going to hope she's got my ring permanently grafted to her finger."

Leaning down, he slowly made a trail of kisses down the path her tears tried to take.

"So if you don't mind, I'm going to be spoiled and go about this in a lazy and useless fashion."

He was sure he made his point but he didn't mind taking his time to make it.

It seemed he had years to get what she knew.


	10. Epilogue

AN: Well my holiday jumpstarted idea of a story is over for now. Gotta love the flu making me creative and crazed. Maybe when I finish the main story I'll come back properly flesh this story out good and proper rather than the skeleton I've put together. If anyone who's read my other story and wonder what the process takes for me, this is the embodiment of a rough write with minor checking. So yeah, I get the feeling I will be taking a long time with Bell and Watson. Enjoy and in about a week or so when I might be really well and no longer traveling, I'll be able to settle into a routine that gives time to write and edit.

**Standing In**

**Epilogue**

He couldn't love a woman like Hermione. She was wondrous and it wasn't just her nature alone that was wondrous, she was that with him. Things that he shouldn't be allowed.

It was why he was sure she tolerated going with him to the manor lately. He had remembered a few time she mentioned hating to talk about the intricacies of work on a professional capacity outside of the office. He knew for a fact that extended time with his father ensured that such an issue would exacerbate easily.

But as things went, she was to some extent expected and needed to go with him to Sunday brunch at the manor.

Six months pregnant and ordered on bed rest the week prior, she was more than in cabin fever at their home. If anything his parents had offered to come to their home but Hermione nixed the idea as she saw merits to going to the manor. More specifically, she wanted to talk to his mother about the plans his parents had thrown about for redecorating the manor's nursery suites.

The young couple had yet to really spend more than a night over at the manor but his parents had thrown the idea around that he would be making home there soon enough. Of course back then when his parents said as much, the next Malfoy hadn't been on the way. Now that the next generation was due sooner rather than later, Narcissa Malfoy was heavily invested in airing out the rooms and updating them to the new trends and sensibilities.

A gesture Hermione was happy for but found unnecessary as no one was going to use the suites.

So she went with him and sat through his father's inquiry about the job she stopped work the week prior. He was tempted to tell his father to shove it as work caused her stress which was why she was ordered to bed rest in the first place. It was the only way to keep her from over taxing herself and upsetting his son.

So for her, he asked his father about other bits of work that didn't relate the ministry and sat back as he was lectured on return on investment and other things that mattered little in comparison to saving his wife from stress and an upset child who might keep her up in through night. Even in the womb his son knew how show displeasure in the worst way, late into the night and making sure mother couldn't sleep was as uncomfortable as possible and in turn pushing Draco about till she found a good spot.

If anything, Draco hoped the next one they have would be less stressful.

Turning, he saw his mother help Hermione into the manor and he was sure they would be refining the details of why Hermione thought what she thought and why his mother thought what she thought. All of which, without his father's domineering input.

* * *

"No." She shook her head. "I don't need you to explain it again."

She could hear another voice start to sound, to which all involved shook their heads.

"Go to your room." She said through clenched teeth lacing her fingers together at how the guilty parties made it sound sensible. "Separately." She called after to make sure that there would be no more conspiring for the next hour or so.

Making sure that the right amount of doors could be heard down the corridor being open and closed, she shook her head and stalked down the private stairway of the bedroom to her husband's study.

His legs were hanging off the side of the couch he laid on as he was sure once looking at the merits of the ceiling and now hiding under a few pieces of parchment.

"I hate to say it but I might actually be glad when either of our parents are back from Spain."

Moving the pages aside and tossing them to the floor, he reached out for her to sit by him.

"What have they done now?" He remembered a mention of the children going to the Burrow at some point during the week but was sure that the event hadn't occurred yet.

"Tried to floo to Harry's to see James about something they didn't really tell me about." An action Draco didn't see a problem with. "Oh, did I mention the part where they were too lazy to actually get proper powder and literally made crude homemade blasting powder with my father's old chemistry kit and singed off parts of all their eyebrows and might have damaged the paneling of the playroom?"

He gave a labored intake of breath at that. "They are smart, limited by resources it seems."

She gave a yawn then, to which he mimicked.

He scooted over a bit more and moved her to lie next to him. "I've sent them to their rooms."

He nodded. "Nap. You just got back from the conference this morning."

"I can't, I haven't looked at the extent of the damage yet and your parents will be back tomorrow."

He shrugged.

His parents loved the kids and would forgive the damage faster than the repairs. If anything, his father would be more interested to know where the idea to do labor came from than the final result.

It seemed the new generation was a leg up on Draco where effort and work was concerned.

All three of his children were interested in the family affairs as a whole and took interest in things Draco remembered knowing at their age and only learned because it was required and out purely out of interest.

Something he the children benefited from he was sure was Hermione's doing. If anything Draco was a week overdue on checking on the report Neville sent about the herbology lab's findings on the properties and new uses of whatever plant it was Draco had funded the other man to study.

At any rate he was already overdue to read the report and no one was worried too much. Sighing, he looked over as his wife's eyes drooped quickly as she settled into him. No, he could wait a bit longer to read through the bits of parchment.

"I love you."

"I know."


End file.
